After visiting the various class. rooms I was shown the large spacious workroom, the recent gift from the Rotary Club of Shanghai, where some twenty older boys were all busily engaged in making wicker and split bamboo furniture. It was most interesting to watch the instructor, who was blind, carefully demonstrate ing to two recent arrivals the necessity for care and precision of design in manufacture. He gestured and spoke as if he could see the intricate pattern which he was engaged upon and quickly discovered mistakes in the two simple pieces which had been woven by the new comers, by the mere expedient of passing his deft fingers across the surface. enquired how it was possible for him to tell the difference in the colours, and learned that each coloured strand was of slightly different shape or texture, and since he carried the complete pattern in his head, any deviation from the~ pattern was a simple matter to detect.
A simple matter. To me it seemed nothing short of wizardry!
Mrs. Fryer informed me that the choir would like to sing for me, and explained that music was one of their most enjoyed recreations. One of the blind students played the organ while the choir, composed of some twelve picked voices, sang several old favourites in English, arranged in four parts. Following the all too brief recital, another student played several organ selections admirably. The students who show any adaptability for music are given the opportunity to learn the organ or any one of the several instruments comprising the band. Naturally the instruction is entirely individual and requires unending pati-eric, since both treble and bass ara learned complete in themselves before the harmony is "put together." One little codger of some nine summers played two' selections on the organ, but since his feet missed touching the pedals by Some eighteen inches, his instruc stress, Miss Wong, pedalled for At the conclusion of the musical programme Mr. Fryer took into his typewriting class and I watched while he dictated several paragraphs from "Ah Baba and the Forty Thieves." Their little fingers raced over the keys making surprisingly few mistakes, when, it ig remembered that the majority have never seen a typewriter, have
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.